“Sigh! Again……!”
s.h.i.+one let out a deep sigh after seeing the Demon Cave Clearing Squad members laying on the ground.
It has only been about six days since they entered the Demon Cave, but five people have already died. How will they handle the monsters deep inside the cave if they have so many losses in the beginning stages?
“There is no need to be so sad. They were all criminals.”
Demetri reached an arm out and lightly hugged s.h.i.+one’s shoulder.
s.h.i.+one dodged to the side in shock.
It was not just because of the physical contact.
Other than mind control magic, s.h.i.+one was also talented in sensing people’s emotions. She had instantly felt a negative emotion from Demetri.
It was l.u.s.t.
Demetri was not looking at her as another member of the Demon Cave Clearing Squad but as a woman. It did not matter that they were in a dangerous Demon Cave filled with monsters.
s.h.i.+one kept regretting her decision. She should not have come in here with these people.
Every time she regretted her decision, a single person’s face kept popping up in her mind.
‘Kang Hwi Ram-nim was right. I should have waited like he told me to do.’
But it was already too late. Since they have come into the Demon Cave, they needed to do everything they could to finish it.
s.h.i.+one could see Demetri starting to frown.
s.h.i.+one could feel a different emotion coming from Demetri at this time. It felt like anger and also frustration. Demetri was clearly annoyed with s.h.i.+one’s reaction just now.
Fear started to creep into s.h.i.+one’s mind. If it continues like this, Demetri might be a more dangerous existence than the monsters. She even thought that she might have to use the Unicorn’s Horn Flute that she had been keeping extremely hidden.
Of course, she would do her best to make sure such a situation did not occur.
s.h.i.+one used all of her strength to activate her mind control magic. The mind control she used on Kang Hwi Ram in the past was to increase his desire, but it was the opposite against Demetri.
She then stood up.
“I understand. Let us go.”
“Sure.”
The scouting party which consisted of the non-prisoner volunteers headed forward again.
There was a total of 20 people in the volunteer squad. They had all come together with Demetri.
She felt a little safer with all of them around. There was no way he would try to do something in front of all of these people right?
They must have walked for about 30 minutes like that.
Demetri suddenly stopped walking.
“Felix. Tell the rear to stop for a moment. Tell them not to come no matter what commotion they hear up here.”
“Hoho. I will.”
s.h.i.+one instantly felt chills running down her body. It was because she felt strong l.u.s.t coming from Felix’s laugh just now.
He wasn’t the only one. She felt strong l.u.s.t coming from all over.
Not only Demetri and Felix, but all twenty members of the volunteers’ quad were having the same thought.
That could only mean one thing.
‘They all talked about this in advance!’
Of course, the topic of that discussion would have been s.h.i.+one’s body. The only difference would be regarding who went first and who went later.
s.h.i.+one subconsciously put her hands up to her chest. She then started to move backwards. It was a naturalistic movement to protect her body.
But she could not take more than two steps back. Demetri had tightly grabbed onto both of s.h.i.+one’s wrists.
“Please let go.”
s.h.i.+one used all of her force to use her mind control magic. She tried to make Demetri feel both fear and aversion.
But it did not work.
There was no way it would work. Mind control magic was not something that could completely change a person’s mind. You needed to put in the effort for a long duration of time to slowly increase the effect of mind control.
“Please don’t do this. You can’t do this here. Are you planning on killing all of your teammates?”
“Who says anything about dying? Teamwork is something you build by b.u.mping bodies with each other. Plus, even if you are a priestess, aren’t you also a woman? You need to enjoy it while you still can.”
s.h.i.+one could feel her heart beating like crazy. Her head felt like it was completely frozen.
But she needed to remain alert especially in a situation like this. How many obstacles had she endured and overcome since she was young?
She could not break down here. She needed to clench her teeth and win. That was the only way to save her father, her grandfather, and even her home country of the Batoru Kingdom.
‘What can I do?’
The only thing she could think of after knowing that her mind control magic was not working was just one thing.
‘Unicorn’s Horn Flute.’
That was her only chance of survival. But she had no way to retrieve it because Demetri was holding onto both of her wrists.
She needed to free her hand first. Then she would be able to blow the Unicorn’s Horn Flute.
“I understand. Please give me some time. Please let me at least come to terms with it. Please let go of my hands first. It hurts.”
“Pfft, just what are you planning? You think I am that dumb?”
“I just need a moment. Please. Then I will do whatever you want me to do.”
s.h.i.+one used whatever strength she had left to use mind control once more. She knew that it would not work, but it was the only thing she could do right now.
As expected, it did not work.
Demetri also did not give s.h.i.+one any openings at all.
“Do we really have to do this the hard way? It would be so much easier if you just did as you were
were told. Hey you, come hold her hands up.”
“Keke, we can finally see her bare skin!”
Two people came forward and held down s.h.i.+one’s wrists and her hips.
They were extremely strong. She could not move at all.
She was upset at the fact that she had only learned support magic. She should have at least learned one attack magic even if it was going against her grandfather’s wishes. Then she would have been able to at least try to resist.
“Don’t do it. I’m going to kill ……aaah!”
Someone forcefully put something like a cloth inside s.h.i.+one’s mouth.
At the same time, Demetri was using his now free hands to take s.h.i.+one’s clothes off.
She tried to resist, but it was to no avail. There was too much difference in strength for her to resist. Her clothes started to come off one by one without s.h.i.+one being able to do anything about it.
‘What do I do? What am I supposed to do in a situation like this?’
s.h.i.+one was doing everything she could to remain alert in such a chaotic situation. But she could not figure out a plan no matter how hard she thought about it.
“By the time we are done with this Demon Cave clearing, I’m sure priestess-nim will like us too. I’m sure you’ll be longing for a man’s body every night. Keke.”
That laughter. It gave her chills. She hated it so much.
But the only thing s.h.i.+one could do was try to shout even though she knew it wouldn’t work and do anything she could do to rest.
‘Don’t do it. Please don’t do it.’
“Sob. Sob.”
Her clothes continued to come off as she cried. First the priestess robe, followed by the leather outfit underneath, and even her underwear. Her upper body underwear came off first, and the moment her lower body underwear came off, s.h.i.+one’s mind became completely white.
It was as if she had lost consciousness.
‘Aah! I’m going to kill myself!’
“Sob. Sob.”
Demetri became even more excited the harder s.h.i.+one tried to resist. He was about to go crazy looking at her white skin that was no longer covered by even a single strand of thread.
He quickly started to strip off his own clothes. All he had left was his pants, but looking at s.h.i.+one’s beautiful naked body made him rush and make mistakes.
“Just wait a moment. I will let you taste heaven. Hehehe.”
Demetri’s group urged him on from the side.
“What they h.e.l.l are you doing? You trying to make us suffer?”
“Wow. What a hot bod.”
It was at that moment.
“……Ugh!”
There was suddenly a grunt. It was very quiet, but Demetri was someone who was used to fighting monsters. He could easily tell what that noise was.
It was the moan of someone losing their life.
It was followed by the sound of someone falling over.
“Hmm?”
Demetri, who was taking his pants down past his knee at this
at this point, turned his head around.
The other volunteers looked toward the same direction at the same time. They could all feel the hairs on their body stand up as they became nervous.
“What is it?”
“What was that sound?”
But that was just the beginning.
“……Hak!”
“Ugh!”
“Ack!”
The members started to fall like flies. And it looked like they were falling for no reason.
“Just what ……?! Ah! That……!”
Demetri finally saw something dark. That dark blob was moving left and right, taking down the other members as it moved.
“Be careful! It’s a shadow monster!”
He quickly pulled his pants back up.
But it was too late. In that short moment, over half of their members were killed. It must be a really strong monster to take out eleven members in less than five seconds.
And more members were getting killed as well.
“Catch it!”
“Attack it!”
The remaining members quickly took their weapons out and started to swing them around. Demetri picked up his large sword and defended.
But it was all for naught. The shadow moved at an unbelievably fast speed and took out the members.
In addition, the Demon Cave was too dark. They were able to light it up with the magic light on their helmets, but all it could do was brighten up a small area in front of them.
Multiple members looking around everywhere made it even worse, as there was no consistent source of light.
In the midst of the chaos, the darkness came for Demetri.
“Heeek!”
Demetri swung his large sword toward the shadow. No, he tried to swing it. But with a sudden spark, his whole body felt a thunder-like shock.
Crackle-
“……Ugh!”
That was the last thing Demetri remembered.
It was the same for the two men who were holding s.h.i.+one down. The Lightning Spear that created the spark had divided up and attacked all three people at once.
s.h.i.+one’s mind was still blank at the time. Her mental fort.i.tude was developed from overcoming all kinds of hards.h.i.+ps for many years, but it was hard to come back to her sense after it crumbled once.
The only thing on s.h.i.+one’s mind was that she wanted to die.
But suddenly, she felt the strength of the people holding her down disappear.
s.h.i.+one could finally look around to try to figure out what was going on. The twenty volunteers were all killed through getting their necks slashed or their hearts stabbed. The ground was full of blood.
Next to them was a dark shadow. The shadow slowly started to head toward s.h.i.+one.
s.h.i.+one unconsciously let out a shriek.
“Kyaaaaaa!”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to be scared anymore.”
She recognized this sudden voice she heard! A face appeared in s.h.i.+one’s mind.
“…… Kang Hwi Ram-nim?”
The shadow disappeared, and Kang Hwi Ram revealed himself.
The moment she saw him, she felt a strong sense of safety and all of her strength gave away. She did not even have the strength to remain standing up.
s.h.i.+one started to up.
s.h.i.+one started to cry. She then flung herself toward Kang Hwi Ram and jumped into his arms.
“Sob. Kang Hwi Ram-nim.”
“You’re okay now. You can relax.”
I gently patted s.h.i.+one’s shoulder.
I could perfectly feel s.h.i.+one’s bare skin even though I was wearing gloves.
It is a unique trait of a Shadow Fox’s Leather Armor. The other parts are pretty thick for defense, but the gloves are made to maintain as much normal feeling in your hands. Not only was it thin, it also had magic imbued to intensify the feeling.
Because of that, it was even more realistic than touching it with my bare hands.
This is awkward. Put some clothes on before hugging me or something.
s.h.i.+one was a mess right now. Although she wasn’t injured anywhere, those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had removed all of her clothes. There was not a single thread covering her naked body.
But it isn’t like I can push away this crying s.h.i.+one.
Since things were like this, there was nothing else I could do. I just hugged her back and waited until she calmed down.
After a moment, s.h.i.+one’s shaking shoulders started to die down. She seemed to stop crying as well.
I consoled s.h.i.+one with a quiet voice one more time.
“It’s okay now. They’re all dead.”
s.h.i.+one lightly turned her head and looked toward the volunteer group’s corpses.
“Did you really …… kill all of them?”
To be honest, I hesitated a bit too. There were 20 of them. If I kill all of them, there would only be about 70 people left in the Demon Cave Clearing Squad.
That was why I thought about killing only the core few and bringing the rest along.
But I changed my mind just 1 second into it. I decided to kill them all.
But the last three should not be dead yet. My lightning spear magic is that that strong.
Furthermore, all three of them had mithril-based armors. It should have strong magic resistance, including resistance against my lightning spear.
“Those three should still be alive. What should I do?”
I pointed to Demetri and the other two with my chin.
s.h.i.+one did not need long to think. She turned her head away and started to speak.
“I heard that enemies on the inside are more dangerous than enemies on the outside. It will be better to be without them than to carry danger with us.”
I had the same thought.
It was not that I wanted to let them live, but I just used magic because I thought s.h.i.+one might end up in danger.
I gently pushed s.h.i.+one away.
s.h.i.+one must have finally realized her current situation. She quickly got embarra.s.sed and used her arms to cover her body as she quickly turned around.
I turned away from her as well. I then used Goonto’s Twin Blades to stab Demetri’s neck.
“……Ugh!”
A faint moan.
At the same time, I heard a message in my head. It was a surprising unexpected gain.
